Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), a surrogate to presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (VT), said universal healthcare for all is needed because the current system in place "literally causes people to die."
Sanders was asked during his interview on "60 Minutes" how much his proposed healthcare for all proposal would cost.
"We do. I mean, you know, and the price tag is it will be substantially less than letting the current system go. I think it’s about $30 trillion," Sanders said, adding he can't "rattle off to you every nickel and every dime" on payment for his other ideas, such as free college for all.
Jayapal was asked about the price tag for Medicare for All on MSNBC.
"I think the thing here to think about is that we have a health care system that literally causes people to die. We have a health care system where people are paying ten times more for insulin in the United States than they do in Canada. We have a health care system where 500,000 people every year file for medically-related — bankruptcy because of medically-related costs. So this is untenable. The system as a whole will cost us $55 trillion over the next ten years," Jayapal said.
The payment, Jayapal explained, would come from" that tiny financial transactions tax on their financial transactions" on Wall Street.
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"So the question here becomes, why would you protect the status quo and how do we make sure that every single person has universal care?" she continued. "In the last year since I’ve introduced the bill, we have had a historic four hearings in the House of Representatives, we have over half of the Democratic caucus including top leadership, we have 30 unions that have sponsored the bill, an incredible racial justice coalition, because people understand that we have to imagine a different kind of guaranteed government-provided insurance program that will allow everyone to get health care. No co-pays, private insurance premiums or deductibles."
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